Keio-Med Open Access (KOA) Facility

Center Director: Hideyuki Okano (Professor, School of Medicine)

Main Campus: Shinanomachi

This center has aimed to enhance the environment for joint use and joint research both inside and outside the university by advancing and improving the convenience of shared equipment. The core of its activities is the "New Shared Use" project, which contributes to the development of a foundation for research promotion by promoting the sharing of research equipment across faculties, including the School of Medicine, the Faculty of Science and Technology, and the Faculty of Pharmacy, and by vitalizing interaction among students, researchers, research support staff, and research equipment development engineers.

Joint Usage/Research Center

■ Activities Continuing from the Previous Fiscal Year: Background, Rationale, and Goals

As the final year of the "New Shared Use" project (the third year of the project adopted in FY2016), we will promote the introduction and operation of the "Shared Support Web System" (SimpRent). To increase the utilization rate of shared equipment, we will actively conduct public relations activities, provide technical support, and improve the surrounding environment.

■ Fiscal Year 2018 New Activity Goals, Content, and Implementation Background

We aim to increase the number of newly registered pieces of equipment for "visualization." We will also promote the use of the reservation system and, in conjunction with a function to clock out after use, build a new billing system in collaboration with Academic and Research Affairs, the Property Management Division, and the Accounting Division to improve user convenience. We will continue and expand the initiative to have engineers from equipment manufacturers stationed at the shared facility about once a month to provide technical consultation for users.

In November 2018, we will establish and pilot a system for nationwide public calls and reviews for joint research, enabling us to apply to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) for designation as a "Joint Usage/Research Center" under the name Keio-Med Open Access (KOA) Facility.

■ Implementation Details for the Fiscal Year's Business Plan, Research Outcomes, and Degree of Achievement

Our activities centered on promoting the MEXT "Project for Promoting Shared Use of Advanced Research Infrastructure (Program for Supporting the Introduction of New Shared Systems)" (hereafter, the "New Shared Use" project), which was adopted in FY2016. Specifically, in addition to the "visualization" of large-scale research equipment in on-campus shared facilities, we promoted the "visualization" of large-scale research equipment belonging to individual laboratories. We advanced the development of the "Shared Support Web System" (SimpRent), designing it not only for "visualization" but also to function as a reservation system and, in the future, to operate as a billing system.

The registration status for "visualization" is as follows: limited to within the laboratory (28 units), for registered users within Keio (17 units), and no restrictions (47 units). Furthermore, there were 960 registered user accounts and 422 registered laboratory groups (98 from Yagami, 320 from Shinanomachi, 3 from Shiba-Kyoritsu, and 1 from Shonan Fujisawa). The number of "visualized" pieces of equipment is steadily increasing and is expected to contribute to the vitalization of joint research both inside and outside the university. Under the guidance of the Vice-President for Research and the university headquarters (Office for Research Coordination and Administration), a framework for promoting the shared use project was established.

Faculty and staff from the School of Medicine, Faculty of Science and Technology, and Faculty of Pharmacy held close meetings and worked together to address the development of the research infrastructure. The "Shared Support Web System" (SimpRent), developed through the "New Shared Use" project, began operation first at the Imaging Center (managed by the Faculty of Science and Technology, with participation from the School of Medicine's Electron Microscope Laboratory). At the Center for Disease Model Analysis (managed by the Faculty of Pharmacy), registration for "visualization" also progressed, including for large-scale equipment managed by School of Medicine laboratories. The Omics Analysis Center (managed by the School of Medicine) proceeded with the registration of equipment such as next-generation sequencers.